Iraq's parliament adjourned abruptly Thursday following a heated debate about a draft law that would divide the country into autonomous regions. Sunnis oppose the plan because it would leave them without access to Iraq's oil as most Sunnis live in the central and western provinces of the country where oil resources are limited. Still, Shiite [...]

Four human rights experts appointed by the United Nations are heading to the Middle East to investigate possible abuses during the recent Mideast conflict between Israel and Lebanon. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Representative on the human rights of internally displaced persons Walter Kälin, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on [...]

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Thursday urged members of the Canadian Senate's Special Committee on Senate Reform to support legislation that would limit terms in the country's unelected Senate to eight years. Currently, senators appointed on a regional basis can retain their seats until the age of 75. Harper's appearance marked the first time a [...]

A bill designed to put the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program on a sound legal footing failed to make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday. Sponsored by committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) , the legislation would have increased the secret warrant time limit from three to seven days, required progress reports from the [...]

A Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote on whether to confirm the nomination of John Bolton as permanent US ambassador to the United Nations was postponed Thursday after Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) called for more information from Bolton. Senate Committee chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN) has not said when a rescheduled vote will take place. Democrats have [...]

Defense lawyer Badih Aref Izzat, representing a co-defendant in Saddam Hussein's trial , announced Thursday that his assistant had been found murdered in Baghdad. Abdel Monem Yassin Hussein is said to have been kidnapped on August 29 and was found five days later in a hospital morgue with three gunshot wounds. Izzat is defending intelligence [...]

The US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held Thursday in a 2-1 opinion that state rules on participation in Ohio's primary elections make it prohibitive for minority parties to be included on the ballot. The court ruled that the requirement that parties must file petitions with signatures 120 days before the election "have a negative [...]

Leading Thursday's international brief, international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said that the Sudanese government has entered a prolonged campaign of randomly bombing civilian locations in the Darfur region and asked the UN Security Council to initiate sanctions against key Sudanese government officials. Under Resolution 1591 , any entity or individual authorizing or practicing [...]

The Bush administration has been "disappointed" with the work of the newly formed UN Human Rights Council , according to US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Mark Lagon during his remarks Wednesday at a hearing of the US House of Representatives International Relations Subcommittee on Africa . The new rights council was created earlier this [...]

The Defense Department's top military lawyers testified Thursday before the US House Armed Services Committee , urging Congress to reject White House proposals that would keep some evidence from suspected terrorists who face prosecutions. The Bush administration submitted the Military Commissions Act of 2006 Wednesday, which among other things calls for classified information to be [...]